Author's Note: Okay, i don't know why I decided this was a good idea, it's probably not, but I just did discover P. L. Wynter's challenges and I wanted to one but couldn't decide which. Anyway, I figured what would be a real challenge would be to put them all thus far into one story. Yeah, so we'll just how that works out. Anywho, takes place after the death of our most despised demon and is therefor somewhat AU, also because some of the challenges kind of require it to be AU, like having a childhood similar to Max's.

Dean's
POV:

"Dude, stop."

"What?"

"Stop."

"No, I heard you. Stop what?"

Stop what? Stop what! Can he
really be that clueless? I peel my eyes from the road just long
enough to check, size him up and see if he's screwing with me.
He's not. "Stop breathing through your nose."

He stares at me for a minute; I
can feel his eyes on the side of my face. Then he bursts out
laughing, the little bitch. "Oh my God," he says. The sound of
his cackling grates even more than the nose whistle and I can feel
all the blood rush to my head. I grit my teeth to keep from saying
anything and tighten my grip on the wheel. Just focus on the car,
Dean. She'll get you through. Feel it? Feel her strength? Feel
her love? Who needs human interaction anyway? Well, some human
interaction is a good thing, a necessary thing. Hey I love my car,
but it's just not right to love your car. What the hell am
I going on about? Damn it, Sam! Now you're literally
driving me crazy!

"So, how much further?"
He's still laughing, trying to hide it, ducking his head, but I
know better. Lately, man, I never thought I'd say this, but I miss
the good old moody hangdog Sam.

"Not far," I manage, even
though my jaw still feels clenched. "Maybe an hour."

"And who are these people
again?"

"Friends."

"Of yours?" Something about
the way he says it – what's the word? – incredulous. Yeah,
see, college boy, I know stuff.

"Yeah, friends of mine.
What of it?"

"Nothing.
Nothing. I just didn't realize that you actually had any friends,
that's all." Okay, so maybe I can't blame him for thinking
that, but come on, does everything have to be punctuated by Sammy
giggles? Punk. "Come on, Dean, I'm just kidding." Yeah,
right. "Dean?" See if I care. "Hey." I'm not listening.
I'm not listening. "Dude! What is your problem?"

"My problem?" Ha, how's
that for incredulous? "What's my problem?"

"Uh, yeah. I mean, seriously
man, we're supposed to be on vacation here. Why don't you loosen
up a little?"

You know those moments you have
in life where someone says something and it's like a switch flips
in your brain? And you start thinking about how ridiculous this all
is? Sammy's telling me to loosen up, that's crazy. Yeah,
well, this isn't one of those moments. "Loosen up?"

"Dean, we're on our way to
Vegas for crying out loud. Las Vegas. And we're staying with your
friends. And this was all your idea in the first place."

"My idea?"

"You were totally psyched a
few weeks ago."

"Totally psyched?"

"Why are you repeating
everything I'm saying?"

I can't help it. I know that
look, the sound of his voice, pure pissy Sammy. I feel my lips curl
up a little. Just a little. And I can't help but piss him off
some more. "Why are you repeating everything I'm
saying?" I mumble it, but he hears, lets out an angry sigh.

"That doesn't even…never
mind."

See, that's the Sam I know and
love. He slumps down in his seat and I can tell, without even
looking, that he's got his arms folded across his chest, his face
in full pout mode. I laugh.

"Unbelievable," he grumbles.

"What?"

"You're like freaking
Bipolar."

"Yeah, whatever." I squint
out at the road ahead of us. It's actually pretty cloudy, witch I
don't get. I mean, this is the desert. Nothing but desert.
Still, it's like the sand sucks up all the sunlight while it can
and spits it back up when the clouds come out. There's a lovely
image. Point is, it might be cloudy, but I have to squint like crazy
anyway. And it's starting to give me a headache.

"I know what this is about,
Dean." I just can't get a break. Maybe it's not the light
that's making my head hurt. "It's not that bad. I mean, it
won't be…you know…like last time."

Last time? Oh, you mean when
you took off and left me alone with Dad for four years while you
partied and studied and fell in love and had a life. Yeah, it won't
be like that at all. So fucking clueless.

"Dean, I'm serious." I
don't know if he's waiting for me to say something or not, but
I'm sure as hell not gonna. He shifts in his seat, I hear the
rustle of his jacket, the squeak of the leather, but everything else
is quiet. The desert. Out here, even with the engine's hum and
Sam's breathing, the buzz of the tape deck and whisper of music,
there's still nothing but silence. It takes him awhile, but
eventually he starts up again. "Look, we talked about this.
After…everything…I told you I wanted to go back. Dad even said –
"

"I don't care about what Dad
said." It's amazing how much there's not out here, how
much nothing there can be in one place.

"Things are finally better,
Dean. With all of us. They might not be good, but…Dad's getting
better…"

"Dad doesn't even know what
better means, Sammy. Just because he said he'd clean up his
act – "

"He's doing the whole rehab
thing, that's something." Yeah, something. But it ain't much.
Just because someone says they want to turn their life around
doesn't mean they can, or will. Dad's been a drunk going on 20
years. A month in rehab's not gonna fix that. Giving up the
booze…it's not gonna erase the last two decades. It won't help
us get back those four years without Sammy, those years that were
lost because in a drunken haze he knocked his son's head
into a wall and told him if he ever came back he'd kill him. It
won't heal that lovely little scar on my back from his belt buckle,
or the one Sam's thigh from his cigarette butt.

It won't bring Mom back. And,
let's face it, that's really the only thing he ever wanted
anyway. The only reason he ever started hunting and training us to
do the same. And a couple years into it all, when it finally seemed
to click that even if he did find the thing that killed her, and
killed it too, she would still be six feet under, well that's the
only reason he started going on his pathetic little benders. So
what, the demon's dead. Yea. But so's Mom, still. So what
reason does he really have to stay sober?

"He loves us, Dean. He didn't
always show it…hell, sometimes he showed the exact opposite. But
he knows, and he feels bad, guilty. He's ready to change." Man,
I hate when he does that. It's like he can read my mind. Gives me
the creeps.

"Whatever."

"I'm not saying we should
forget about everything, or forgive…I don't know."

"In two weeks I'm moving
back to California. I'm going to law school. I'm gonna talk to
my friends and make new ones, and get on with my life."

"Congratulations."

"I'm going to be happy."

"I'm happy for you," I
say, maybe a little bit too sarcastically.

"I wish you would be."
Yeah, well, I wish I could be.

We hit the outskirts of Vegas
around six and the sun, which finally came out, was starting that
pre-sunset golden glowing thing it always does out here. I remember
it well. In another hour it'll turn so orange it's almost red.
Then, an hour after that the burning red will somehow shoot out
layers of purple through the sky. Then it'll slowly sink away,
leaving nothing but bitter cold black and a sprinkling of stars.
Yeah, the desert. I wonder if it's kind of like this in Palo Alto.

We made it all the way here
without bringing up anymore "uncomfortable" subjects, which,
really, was all I could ask for. But still, Sam refused to sit still
and keep quiet. I would have thought that after shutting him down
about Dad he'd be all sulky, but no, apparently he just can't
help but be giddy. Damn him.

"What about the Jackalope?"

"The what?"

"Jackalope." He says it
like I'm supposed to know what the hell he's talking about, like
I'm some kind of moron for not knowing what a jack-a-whatever is.
When I look his way and he sees I'm serious, seriously out of the
loop anyway, he shakes his head and laughs. "You know, a cross
between a jack rabbit and an antelope. A Jackalope."

How that could happen I have no
idea, but the image of a rabbit and a deer, I just have a feeling,
will be stuck in my head for a long time. "What about it?"

"You think they're real?"

God, I hope not. "Don't
know. Hey," I turn to him, suddenly remembering something, "are
you talking about those creepy-ass stuffed rabbits people have with
antlers glued to their heads?"

"Yeah…Jackalopes."

Now it's my turn to shake my
head and laugh. "Man, you're an idiot."

"What, stranger things have
happened. It's possible."

"Yeah, well you just keep your
eyes peeled for one. Let me know what you see. Maybe you should be
on the lookout for Leprechauns too while you're at it."

"Actually, Leprechauns
probably are real, well, as real as any other creatures from Celtic
mythology anyway. You know, fairies, brownies, Lady of the Lake."

"Dude, you're so gay."

"Whatever man," he says, a
lift in his voice. I pull into the long circular driveway, which I
don't remember them having the last time I was here – of course
that was, what, almost four years ago? – and put the car in park.
"This is it?" He looks up at the big old house and I can tell
what he's thinking.

"They remodeled. Did a bunch
of renovations. Wanted something…different." A
Victorian-looking house in the middle of the desert was definitely
different. "When Sal decided to open a Bed and Breakfast, she said
only this look would work."

"A good old fashioned Bed and
Breakfast in the middle of nowhere just outside Las Vegas. Bet they
get a ton of business."

"Enough that they can afford
to comp our stay, little brother," I say, getting out of the car.
As soon as I shut the door I hear a familiar voice saying hi, see a
familiar girl raise her arm in a wave.

"That's Sal?" I wave back
and look at Sam just in time to catch the smirk on his face. "And
just how good of friends were you?"

Hey, I get it, it's not like I
never thought about it, I mean, she's hot, and only a couple of
years older than me. But still… "Dude, she's married."

"Dean," she says in that
light Southern accent as she makes her way toward us. Everything
about her is sweet and southern. Even after being out here for
almost five years, she's kept her accent, her long soft, wavy hair,
her impractical strappy heels and flowing skirts. She throws her
arms around me and hugs me tight and I can even smell the south on
her, Magnolia. "I'm so glad y'all could make it. Oh, I just
feel like it's been forever since we've seen you!" she says
before finally letting go. "And you must be Sam." She charges
around the car and pulls him in for a hug too. Whatever she says to
him is muffled when she leans into his neck, but I can make out
something about feeling like she knows him already. "Come on,"
she says as she grabs the duffel from him, "Let's get you
settled."

The house is nothing like I
remembered it. Nothing. When I came here last it was a mess. They
had just bought the place, Sally and Jake, and were getting started
on all the renovations when weird things started happening. It was
pretty typical haunting stuff, flickering lights, cold spots, sound
of footsteps. Then they started seeing things, apparitions. Sal,
being the gossip she is – and man, is that girl a gossip – told
everyone about it. Some stupid little ghost web site thing ran a
story about it, about how they might have to give up the house and
their plans for a business, and all the money they already sunk in
the place, because they were worried about the safety of their
daughter. Turns out that was only partially true. Sally never
thought they were in danger at all, but that's because she's a
glass half-full kind of gal.

Anyway, I came, I saw, I
exorcised or whatever. There were a few ghosts unliving in
the house, a kid and his mom who were killed by some wannabe mobster
back in the forties, and the mobster guy himself. Sal still probably
thinks they were totally harmless, but once she found about what
really happened, she was more than happy to see the killer get sent
to Hell. At least that's where I assume he went, although I
sometimes wonder.

"Where's Jake?" I ask,
interrupting her tour. With Sal, if you don't step up and but in,
you'll never be able to get a word in. I learned that while I
stayed to help with all the construction. Three months. It was a
long time to be any one place, but they paid me and gave me free room
and board. And more than that, there was no trying to work with Dad,
no trying not to miss Sammy.

"He ran out to get some
groceries, should be back anytime." She turns to Sam. "My
husband. He took our Callie with him, had to. She's quite a
handful, sometimes you just have to get that girl out of the house
and hope you can exhaust her enough that she'll finally just
collapse and…stop." She laughs, a light almost high-pitched
chuckle, and both Sam and I can't help but smile.

"Callie's your daughter?"
he asks as we make our way upstairs. Again he reaches for the bag
Sal's struggling with, but she won't let him have it.

"And owner of all this mess."
On the landing she kicks a stuffed lion out of the way and down the
hall. "Sorry about that."

"Not at all. It's been a
while since we've been in a…home."

"Oh, well, it certainly is
that. Lived in, we'll say." She opens a door and walks in,
throws the duffel on the bed and smacks her hands together. "Well,
Sam, this is your room. You've got a garden view. See." We
move to the window and look down. They've built a little patio
surrounded by some patches of grass and flowers, a few trees. They
must have to water it like ten times a day out here. "And there's
the hot tub. Just wait 'til it gets dark," she almost whispers
to him, "it's heavenly."

"Thanks Sal."

"You just get yourself all
settled in, Sweetheart. And you," she says as she grabs my arm,
"let's see if we can't find some place to stash you."

"Do I get a garden view too?"

"Not a chance."

I didn't get a great view, but
I did get my own bathroom, so who am I to complain? Sal left me to
unpack, but not without first informing me that I looked like crap,
which seemed, I guess because of her drawl, more concerned than
insulting. But she didn't push, she just told me supper'd be
ready in an hour and I should come on down then. So I did. And now
I'm sitting here sandwiched between a six-year-old girl and Sam,
who with his new upbeat outlook on life, kind of reminds of a
six-year-old girl anyway.

"You need another beer?" I
nod to Jake and hand him my empty bottle, wait for him to come back
with a nice new cold one. Sam gives me a look, a
do-you-really-think-you-should-be-having-another-drink kind of look.
But I ignore him. Hey, he's the one who said this was supposed to
be a vacation. He leans over me and talks to Callie, maybe because
he likes kids – and she is a cute kid – or maybe just to get in
my way and on my nerves. It's hard to tell.

"So is Callie short for
anything?"

Before she can respond, Sal
chimes in with, "Carolina. See, I'm from South Carolina
originally, don't know if you could tell. So I wanted to name her
after something that reminded me of home. Jake shot down Magnolia
and Charlene, which was my grandmother's name – Charlene, not
Magnolia – but he okayed Carolina, just as long as we didn't call
her Carol. Why was that, dear?"

"Old girlfriend."

"Right, right, Carol was an
old girlfriend. Didn't want to remind him of that. So, anyway, we
dropped the South, obviously, and just started calling her Callie for
short. Sometimes Cal."

"Like her mom," Sam says
with a smile, even though his eyes are still on me. I look him
straight in those damn puppy dog eyes and take a long swig of my
fresh beer. He turns and shakes his head, so disapproving.

"I remember you," the kid
next to me says. When I don't respond she pokes me in the side and
almost makes me drop my bottle. I look at her. "I remember you."

"Oh yeah," I say, humoring
her. She was practically a baby last time I saw her.

"You put bunnies on my wall."
I cock my head toward her and smile; she's right, I did. How old
do you have to be to remember stuff like that? Not too old, I guess,
after all, I can still remember making cookies with my mom, and her
pushing me on the swings. I can still remember my dad tucking me in,
no trace of alcohol on his breath. I can still remember, though
barely, a time when I wasn't terrified of the dark, when I knew
that even if there was something in my closet, my mom and dad would
protect me from it no matter what, always.

"Bunnies?" I hear Sam's
voice and the images in my head, the memories, all disappear, gone
completely. I wonder if they were really memories at all, maybe just
wishful thinking.

"Oh yeah," Jake says trying
not to laugh. "Dean put up all the wallpaper in the house." He
covers his mouth with the back of his hand but the giggles – and
there really is no other word for them but that, giggles – spill
out. "He was such a shitty carpenter. Couldn't even drive a
nail in straight."

"Hey, I wasn't that bad."

"Oh honey," Sal says looking
at me, "you were using a nail gun." And everybody laughs. But
to be fair, those aren't the kind of guns I was trained to use. I
should just be glad they aren't mentioning the saw fiasco. "Oh,
oh, remember when he sawed through the drywall?" And there it is.

"Yeah, how did you do
that, man?"

"I got skills," I say and
quickly down the rest of my beer.

There's a chance that this may
just be the longest vacation of my life.

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